Very Very Frightening
by grannysknitting
Summary: Sequel to Thunderbolts and Lightning. Sherlock tries to make things better. Mrs Hudson helps. Other people don't.


**Very Very Frightening (Sherlock BBC Fanfic)**

January 3rd, 9:04

Current Mood: listless

Current Music: shhhhh

_Sequel to Thunderbolts and Lightning_

John spent the next five weeks sleeping on the couch. No amount of argument, persuasion or sulking could change his mind. As long as Sherlock needed the protection of the gun while they slept, John refused to sleep anywhere near it. Sherlock had even overheard him tell Mrs Hudson to lock her doors in a thunderstorm, explaining in an awkward voice what had happened.

The problem - so far as Sherlock could deduce - was that John was worried that he would hurt them in a flashback. He'd never had one this violent before, which had shaken his nerves considerably. He'd even gone back to the therapist - the useless one that didn't understand him the way Sherlock did. Mycroft reported that her sole contribution to John's mental health had been to lock away any weapons in his reach and start a cocktail of drugs.

Sherlock had thrown them away and shouted at John until he agreed not to take them, then threw away the replacements that John left with Mrs Hudson and refused to speak, look at or touch his lover for three solid days.

John didn't need _drugs_ to get through this. He wasn't a danger to anyone - the very idea that he could be was patently ridiculous to Sherlock.

"You dragged me to safety!" Sherlock's shout echoed through the flat after three days of Operation Isolation, "Then you demanded answers. You knew who I was within twenty eight seconds and surrendered the gun immediately. You don't need to be sedated to be safe! I won't work with an automaton!"

"It's all about the work, is it?" came the bitter answer. John was haggard, pale and in pain from sleeping on the couch, which was too narrow to comfortably accommodate his once wounded shoulder. He'd begun to lose weight and even Sally Donovan had noticed it.

"Don't be ridiculous," Sherlock retorted, which sparked a round of John ignoring _him _of all things.

Of course, Sherlock had ignored John while in full occupation of their flat. John ignored Sherlock by leaving for the majority of the day - working extra shifts in the surgery or sitting in the park watching the pedestrians.

"The thing is, Sherlock, that he loves us. It would kill him to think that he'd hurt us simply because his mind was playing tricks on him," Mrs Hudson had counselled over tea in the kitchen as the fifth week drew to an excruciating close, "He just needs to feel safe again."

"I don't know how to do that - nothing that the websites say describe John's situation and the therapist was worse than useless," Sherlock frowned. Mrs Hudson tutted and leaned over to pat his arm.

"We need to change the environment he sleeps in, for one thing, and you need to make him some promises," she said firmly, "But above all, you need to _listen_ to him."

Which was why Sherlock had roped in two of his sturdier and more trustworthy homeless acquaintances to move Sherlock's clutter into John's room and John's bookcase and belongings into Sherlock's room. If they were on the middle floor of the house, the thunder would be somewhat muted - less immediate - and if John did bolt out into the flat, the sight of their familiar belongings would help him recognise his location much more quickly than the mostly empty landing upstairs. John already had a gun safe for his weapon - Sherlock moved it upstairs as well. The need for its protection had passed, which would help him persuade John to come back to bed.

It didn't take much to find John in the park. Sherlock would have preferred to stage his intervention in a slightly less public forum as he wasn't certain how John would react, but as Mrs Hudson said 'beggars can't be choosers'.

"Who is Matty?" Sherlock asks as he sits down, making sure that he tangles John's ankle with the walking stick Sherlock brought along. It will stop John from running away without Sherlock being forced into a public display of affection - which would cloud the issue.

"Matty was a fellow Captain in my unit. We bunked together," John sighs and doesn't even _try_ to move, which proves he's as tired of this situation as Sherlock is, "One night we were woken by enemy fire. We grabbed our kits, I grabbed my sidearm and we headed for the base hospital. Matty remembered he'd left his weapon and returned for it after only a few yards... then our quarters exploded. We never found all of him."

"So the proximity of another body, the recall of danger before you went to sleep and the sudden pyrotechnics triggered the flashback," Sherlock summed up quietly.

"I know that, Sherlock," John's voice held a weary patience that Sherlock hated having directed at him, it made him feel as if he'd missed something important, "It's just that I couldn't live with myself if I hurt you or Mrs Hudson."

"I've moved our bedroom downstairs. The gun safe is in your old room and if we ever face a situation where we may need to defend ourselves at a moments notice again I'll make arrangements that you won't be in the same room as it when you sleep," Sherlock addressed the issues that he and Mrs Hudson had decided were the important ones, "I need you to come back John. I don't like this distance between us. It affects my thinking processes and people have started to notice your failing health. Just yesterday, Lestrade asked me what I'd done to make you look this way."

"Does he even have his house keys?" John chuckled wearily and Sherlock smirked, shaking his head. The DI was also locked out of the Scotland Yard computer system until further notice, but John didn't need to know that.

"Will you come back to me?" Sherlock asked and John turned his head to look at him, the doctors eyes searching his lovers face with an intensity that Sherlock had rarely felt before. He wasn't being dramatic when he asked John to _come back_ - it felt like he'd been living with a shadow for weeks now. He wasn't sure how much longer he could put up with the distance between them - something that had become rare even before Sherlock had declared himself married to his work _and_ John.

"I'm so tired of running," John sighed, then his face hardened, "**Promise me you'll take me out before I hurt anyone.**"

"I promise," Sherlock vowed, though the thought of John hurting him or Mrs Hudson was plainly ridiculous. John accepted the vow with a sigh and slumped to lean against his consulting detective. Sherlock untangled the walking stick from his legs and pulled his lover up off the bench.

"Home," Sherlock commanded, "Bed. You need to sleep properly."

"Yes dear," John giggled and Sherlock rolled his eyes, towing the doctor along by the wrist impatiently.

END

Disclaimer - characters and settings as depicted in BBC series not mine. No money being made. Plot is mine.


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